I’ve seen Citizen Kane once. But Lucio Fulci’s The New York Ripper — as well as many other of Fulci’s flicks — I’ve viewed on VHS, DVD and now Blu-ray, more times than I can even count, many from a very young age that my parents should probably be ashamed of.
The New York Ripper, however, as bloody and gory as you’d imagine, is also Fulci at his most misogynistically goofy, throwing in so many offensive tropes against women that you have to wonder who was the person who hurt him so bad, filling his Italian soul with such anger. I have my theories, and Fulci does a great job of stabbing them all to hell, right in the guts and other assorted parts.
In a hysterical preamble, a possibly homeless man is playing fetch with his dog underneath the Brooklyn Bridge, only instead of a ball, the pooch brings back a largely decayed human hand. From there, we follow jerky police detective Fred (Jack Hedley, For Your Eyes Only) and even jerkier psychotherapist Paul (Paolo Marco, Watch Me When I Kill) as they constantly crack wise while they investigate the bizarre clues that take them on a wild goose chase throughout the city.
Let me rephrase that: a wild duck chase, mostly because the slasher will call and taunt both his victims and police in a creepy, Donald Duck-esque voice — one that I’m sure had the Disney lawyers checking their copyright-law books. From the inner workings of a live sex show on 42nd Street to the scummy apartment of the neighborhood sex freak, every red herring is taken as deviantly far as they can go in a reasonable, somewhat mainstream film.
With a brutally downbeat ending — spoiler alert! — featuring a little girl dying of a childhood illness (natch) and crying for her daddy in a hospital room, there are many times when The New York Ripper is such a down and dirty film, I’m surprised no one is wearing a Make America Great Again hat, each scene pornographically lingering on every physical and mental stab wound with sadistic glee.
The Blu-ray reissue from Blue Underground is an absolute embarrassment of impoverished riches, from the second disc full of fully produced documentaries and interviews, to a copy of the sleaze-funk score by Italy’s answer to Isaac Hayes — at least by me — Francesco De Masi. While many of the stars might be embarrassed to have taken part in — or be taken apart by — The New York Ripper, I’ll proudly set this edition on my shelf next to Zombie, The Beyond and, hell, even Citizen Kane. —Louis Fowler